Friday, August 21, 2009

Today is one of those days where everything seems to be going against me. Lady Luck just doesn’t seem to be anywhere near. Was going to meet Kimberly, Lisa, Gillian and her bf (Kelvin) at Mid Valley, and to my horror, the parking lots in every zone were full! Aside from jamming all the way into Zone C, I spent 45 minutes circling the parking area in hope of finding a spot. Since I’m not staying in MV for very long, I decided to just leave my car at the car wash centre and allow my car to have its spa treatment it deserved (hv not been washing my car ever since I got back from China XD). As soon as I thought I solved my parking problem and got out of the car smiling, the guy there told me, “Sorry, car wash services here are ONLY FOR MEMBERS.”

To top it all, I lost my parking ticket!

Anyway, I somehow managed to squeeze my tiny little Kelisa (damn I love my car!) into a sloping, non-parking area completely blocking an exit door. Haiya… as long as I didn’t obstruct the traffic should be ok la….right? hehe. However, anyone coming out from that exit would need to climb onto my car roof in order to get out. I doubt anyone would take those secluded exits lor... No sign of shoe print on my car roof. Haha!

Coming back to the lost ticket, I was mentally prepared to pay the penalty and declare myself bankrupt for the day when Kimberly opposed my decision to do so. (Had a vivid reverie of Kim being a lawyer yelling, “No! We shall fight!”) She then shared with me about the amusing incident that happened to Japheth and Chung Siew at One Utama and how they avoided the Lost Parking Ticket penalty. Sorry la…I’m not sharing that story, otherwise everyone will start to imitate what they do. Hahaha! I can just say good acting skills are much required. =P

SO, me and my rescue team consisting of Kim, Gillian, and Kelvin, our brainstorm session came up with several plans and tactics:

Plan A: Take Kelvin’s parking ticket, slot it in the machine and exit while their vehicle follows close behind and pretend their ticket is consumed by the machine but the gate is not opening. So when the guard comes and check if you are really the owner of the ticket by asking questions such as entry time, we would know the answer, if the ticket was to be retrieved from the machine.

Plan dropped.Reason: My car is parked in a different zone, which is not linked to the zone they parked at.

Plan B: Press a new ticket from the parking entrance auto-machine.

Plan dropped.Reason 1: Japheth (well-experienced in losing parking tickets) executed the plan before and failed. Possibility of heavier object required for the sensor to be able to detect.Reason 2: Neither one of us want our faces to be captured by the CCTV camera and be mistaken for a car thief.Reason 3: We’ve all seen how Mr. Bean did it before in one of his episodes and know very well how silly and idiotic it would make us look.

Plan C: Drive Kelvin’s car to the parking entrance, get the ticket, then reverse his car out.

Plan dropped.Reason 1: Cars would definitely already start building a long queue behind us before we could even reverse our car.Reason 2: CCTV would be watching our every move and our action would raise suspicion.

Plan D: All four of us take my car, head to the exit, pretend to slot in the ticket into the machine and make a scene with the guard complaining the ticket is defective. Kelvin and Kim will take over the front seat of my car since they are much capable in portraying a poker face while me and Gillian will take the back seat (we admit we’re just lousy at it).

Success rate: 50%Reason: Chances are the guard would just let us go instead of having us obstructing the traffic. If he really retrieved the previous ticket and ask us for the entry time, we would just answer we were here to have lunch and we don’t have a clue on the arrival time.

As we were taking our chances with Plan D, on our way to the car park, Kim suddenly came up with the ultimate Plan:

Plan E : Borrow her friend’s season parking pass. So coincidently her friend works in Mid Valley. My Saviour!!! Executed the plan and SUCCESS!

One tiny issue we’re worried about is, does the season pass (which functions like a Touch n Go card) permits the card owner to do a double exit? While our escape mission has been accomplished, my saviour could be stuck in the car park after work! So I bought him some chocolates to show my gratitude and in case if he REALLY gets stuck in the car park, it would at least help to prevent him from cursing me so much. >.<